


Quiet Terrors

by tea_and_outer_space



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Gen, Stargazing, Thinking, that's pretty much it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 22:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4497846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_and_outer_space/pseuds/tea_and_outer_space
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's nothing in the world like the absolute terror of being alive.<br/>Rabbit smiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet Terrors

**Author's Note:**

> so, i'm kind of new to the fandom. i'm still working on listening to all of their music and getting caught up with the backstory and everything. so if i get any facts wrong, that's probably why!  
> so, yeah.   
> i hope you like it.

There's nothing in the world like the absolute terror of being alive.

And Rabbit doesn't know how others see it, she doesn't know what The Spine or Hatchworth or even Steve think of it. It isn't anything that they ever really talked about.

They'd talk about music and they'd talk about traveling and they'd talk about the Walters. On quiet nights when all that kept them company was the hum of the van's wheels and Steve whistling from behind the steering wheel, sometimes they'd talk about the war, the wars, all of them. Of the very first Peter and of Delilah and how things could have been an infinity different.

But they never really talked about life, never really questioned it.

At least, the others didn't, at least, to Rabbit's knowledge.

But The Spine never brought it up, Hatchworth never dropped it into conversation, and maybe they did but maybe it was just one of those things that were never talked about.

And besides the quiet nights in the van, the empty stages after the shows, the nights in the mansion while the humans all slept, there wasn't any more time beyond that. Those were just slivers, anyway, cracks in the bigger picture.

The bigger picture was singing and preforming, and if you squinted, fighting and saving.

And the bigger picture was a blur of songs and sounds and colors, and it was hard to find time to just sit around and talk about how being alive terrified the fuck out of her.

The mansion had it's fair share of secrets, and just a few of them were the hidden rooms. Hatchworth didn't know about any of them, and The Spine only knew a few, but Rabbit knew them all. She knew every nook and cranny of the house, and her absolute favorite was an old, rusted spiral staircase, hid behind a fireplace in her room. It was the main reason she chose that room as her own, because in the staircase was hidden memories of the first Walter.

Pappy.

He didn't program everything, at least not for her. Maybe he did for the others, she wasn't sure, but she knew that he didn't for her. Half of the information she had from him was taught, and one of those things was the stars.

And it was a bit after she learned how to walk without tripping and a bit before she could speak without shouting when they went up the spiral staircase, out through the window, and onto the roof.

A hundred years ago, the light pollution was less. There wasn't a city in the distance, a highway nearby, streetlamps and helicopters and cars and motorcycles. The sky was easier to see then, back when the trees around the house were saplings and not towers.

It's a Friday night, long past the time when she should have powered down. She can practically hear The Spine fussing at her for it already, but Rabbit decides that's a problem for tomorrow.

There's dusty clouds over the sky, blocking out patches the stars that look like salt on black paper. Soft wind rushes by occasionally, setting off the sensors in her artificial skin. Occasionally there's the rumble of thunder, reverberating through every piece of metal in her body, but she decides the impending rain is a problem for later.

She tilts back, lying down on the roof, head resting on the palms of her hands, and realizes she does that a lot.

Her oxidization was a problem for next year. Her glitches and stutters and malfunctions, they were all a problem for another day, another time.

Rabbit smiles, finds the Little Dipper, and reminds herself that she didn't come up there to point out her faults.

She came up here to think.

She can remember back a hundred years ago, to people crowding and pointing and talking over her, all excited over the fact that she could think. She was metal and a little something extra, and she could think.

And there's the programming and the wires and the protocols and all the things that could be tampered with to take her thought away from her, but it doesn't matter, because right now, she can think.

A bit of cloud passes over half of the Little Dipper. Her mouth twitches into a frown for a split second, before she seeks out another constellation.

He'd take her up here, and point out the constellations. Even when she'd forget and even when her night optics were still screwy and she was practically blind outside, he'd still teach her.

And Rabbit forgets a lot of things, and she forgets a lot of those things on purpose, but anything that he taught her is something she'll never forget.

Because if she forgets, everyone forgets. The current Peter never even met Pappy. And Hatchworth's memories from them are like shattered glass, and The Spine only talks about it if she brings it up. She reminds and she tells and she informs and she keeps Pappy alive in her own way.

And Rabbit knows it's a bit pretentious and a bit selfish and a bit childish and a bit silly, but she can't help but think that out of the all of them, she was the closest.

She was the oldest, and she knew him the best, and she'd never tell anyone that.

She had her doubts before, but one time her and The Spine and Hatchworth had gotten lost. It was Hatchworth who reminded them that the hotel they were staying at was to the north.

The Spine glanced towards the North Star in a mechanical heartbeat, a blink of programming and a blip of a preformed memory that was given to him at birth.

Rabbit had to take a second to remember where Pappy had told her where it was, all that time ago, and by the time she had found it up in the sky with a smile on her lips, The Spine and Hatchworth were already several yards away.

That cemented it.

The clouds seem to be covering the entire sky now, and the tall oaks seem to lean in around her, casting shadows over the house, cloaking the isolated area of the roof in darkness. If she had human eyes, she wouldn't be able to see a thing.

It doesn't really matter, anyway, there aren't any stars and the moon is just a sliver behind the clouds, so it doesn't really matter.

Rabbit lets her eyes shut.

She hums to herself, occasionally getting stuck on a note. It's a simple song, something they've been playing around with and are probably going to bring out on a show soon, and she taps her foot absentmindedly to the beat.

She says that a lot: it doesn't really matter.

Her skin's more green than gold now, it doesn't really matter. She glitched up during Honeybee again, it doesn't really matter. There's a click in her joints and maybe her parts from a hundred years ago are breaking down, but it doesn't really matter.

Along with acting carefree, Rabbit is aware that she's a huge fucking liar.

And it's with the small things (“Y-y-y-y-y-y-yes, Spine, I'm fine with you leading that song.”), and it's with the big things (“N-n-n-n-n-no, Steve, I don't think of the w-w-war often.”), and it's with everything.

The Spine sometimes chews her out for her carelessness, and Hatchworth occasionally glares at her flippant words, and she's gotten so many talks from so many Walters about her casual attitude that she has the script memorized.

And the thing that they don't get is that if she doesn't act like she doesn't care about anything, she cares about everything.

And, / _god/_ , how she cares.

A little over one hundred years seems like such a long time and such a brief instant, but it was full of songs and robots and war and humans and places and things, and she cares about it all.

She hums a little more, taps her toe a little faster.

And that's what makes it all scary, she supposes.

Because she cares, and someday Steve will die, and the current Peter will die, and the Walter Girls will die, and all of the humans will die. And someday they're might not be anyone to take care of them, and so someday The Spine might rust to pieces and Hatchworth might crumble to dust, and someday her parts will all fall away until she's nothing but a husk.

The mansion will crumble to pieces, Peter A. Walter will be a forgotten name, the world will tick on, and someday no one will care about a group of old robots who sang and danced.

And that day is coming, and Rabbit knows this.

And it terrifies her straight to her core. It sends nonexistent chills through her artificial skin, it sends her dreams even though robots aren't supposed to dream. It's what makes her lay on roofs at night and think of her Pappy and how things could be different and how they could never be different.

Rabbit smiles to herself.

Because she knows the reason why she never talks about life with the others. It's because her thoughts are skewed. There a jumble and a catastrophe, and half the time it feels like she has nothing in her mind but scribbles dancing all over the place.

In the center of it is that under current of terror.

And she hopes to whatever that listens to hope that she never loses it.

Because the second she stops being scared happens a second after she stops caring.

And that's what it boils down to.

If she doesn't care, she wouldn't have a reason to be scared.

But, holy shit, does she care.

And the humans and the others all seem to talk about terror as if it's something to run from, but it's been Rabbit's best friend for years, and she's okay with that. She's okay with that, as long as it comes hand in hand with the caring.

Rabbit opens her eyes, and stares out into the faint dark of the Friday night. She can barely remember the day, and she can't even remember the year, but it doesn't really matter.

She smiles.

She lays out there for a few minutes more, the wind shaking hands with the trees nosily, and the thunder rumbling around her.

There's nothing in the world like the absolute terror of being alive, and she loves it.

 

 


End file.
